Wednesday Paperback Cover

Happy Halloween

Kiss Me, Stupid: What is Mickey Spillane's Appeal?

The recent arrival of Dead Street, the latest Hard Case Crime release, and the final crime novel by writer (not author) Mickey Spillane, has got me wondering, exactly what is the appeal of the man's work? I intended to write a review of Dead Street, but I don't think I'm going to be able to finish it. It's too corny. This isn't my first attempt at reading Spillane. I've tried a couple times before and always given up. I'm beginning to think it's him, not me. I posed a similar question on the mailing list Rara Avis, and no one has yet to offer a real defense of Spillane's work. There has been a lot of talk about how successful he was, and there's no arguing with that. He was a one man publishing phenomenon, and one of the most successful writers of the 20th Century. Still, he's not any good. His characters are all the same-psychopathic thugs. His dialogue is stilted and ridiculous (Was there ever a time when men called women doll?) and his plots don't exactly leave room for shades of gray. Violence is always the answer. In Spillane's world there's no problem that can't be solved with a gun. It's always the first resort. In Dead Street, in a particularly stupid scene, the protagonist fantasizes about shooting a veterinarian in the face. A veterinarian who bought him coffee and wanted to talk to him. The veterinarian's mistake is bringing up a traumatic event from the protagonist's past. That's all it takes to set this guy off. That's not tough. It's pathetic. But Spillane doesn't present him as the damage case he obviously is. No, there's nothing wrong with this guy. Now, I like a tough guy protagonist. Take Westlake's Parker, for instance. He's a guy for whom violence is always the answer. But he's a crook and a psycho. Westlake doesn't hold him up as a hero. Violence also causes Parker as many problems as it solves. In Spillane's world violence only solves problems. Is that what made him so popular? Is there really a longing deep in the hearts of men to shoot every guy who says the wrong thing and every woman who does them wrong? If so, Spillane's success says a lot about human nature, none of it good.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

The first rule of high school sex club is don't write books about high school sex club.

Review of Reasonable Doubts

Reasonable Doubts (Bitter Lemon Press, 2007) by Gianrico Carofiglio and translated by Howard Curtis, is a thinking man’s legal thriller. The third novel to feature defense lawyer Guido Guerrieri, Reasonable Doubts centers on Guerrieri’s efforts to clear a man convicted of drug trafficking after having been caught entering Italy with a car packed full of cocaine. Complicating matters is the fact that Guerrieri’s new client may or may not be a former fascist thug who once beat up his new lawyer for wearing the wrong color coat, and the fact that Guerrieri finds himself hopelessly smitten with his new client’s wife. His client, called Fabio Rayban, because of the brand of sunglasses he used to favor, might also be guilty.

Carofiglio, a former mafia prosecutor in Bari, where he sets his novels, does not provide any easy answers. The legal system renders verdicts, either guilty or not guilty, but the legal system is just a social construct set up to help people deal with complex sets of facts, and, even after a verdict is rendered, questions about the truth often remain. The author’s background and experience help him paint a vivid picture of the ambiguous nature of much legal work.

The book is slow at points, however, and may be a bit underwhelming for readers whose tastes run to two-fisted action or sensational crimes. It’s truly a novel of the legal system, and most of the action takes place in offices and courtrooms. The denouement is also a little too convenient. The protagonist, after having brought unwanted attention to some organized crime elements while trying to clear his client, has all of the impending danger disappear through a stroke of coincidence. After a long story about how easy answers aren’t easy to come by, the ending is a little too convenient, but then again, it’s fiction, and if we are to be denied easy answers in real life, shouldn’t we be able to find them somewhere?

Hiding Your Interest in Sleaze

William Smith of Hangfire Books in Brooklyn has an interesting post about the lengths some people will go to to disguise their interest in prurient reading material. I'm kind of puzzled. I mean, whoever owned those books could have just put them in a drawer or a closet or something. Seeing a bunch of blacked out spines on a bookshelf would make me quite suspicious.

And, in case you missed it the first time, Mr. Smith has a killer Flickr feed of paperback covers. (via)

I feel like I've been slacking lately

I realize there hasn't been a lot of new content here lately, and I feel bad about that, but I've been quite busy with work, and I've been wandering off the reservation lately. I've been reading quite a bit, when I haven't been listening to the new Radiohead album. I've recently finished Terrill Lankford's Earthquake Weather, which was an entirely entertaining novel that answered a lot of questions I had about the movie business. (Yes, it's evil, in case you were wondering.) I've also read Ed Gorman's western Bad Money, which I also enjoyed very much. It was a pleasant surprise because I'm not a huge fan of westerns. The only western movies I really like are The Wild Bunch and High Plains Drifter, so I was pleasantly surprised to find I enjoyed Mr. Gorman's work. It was the first western I've read, although I plan to read James Reasoner's recent work, Death Head Crossing, in the near future, because if it's half as good as Dust Devils, it will still be kick ass.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

Similar titles, similar themes.

An Epiphany of Sorts

Bryon Quertermous has a revelation about the value of independent presses. He admits to past prejudice against indie publishers, which seems silly to me. If I were to publish a book, a small publisher who's going to actually pay attention to my work would seem attractive compared to a huge publishing conglomerate where it would likely languish midlist while all of the available marketing budget got redirected to promoting some book about a professor who happens to look exactly like Tom Cruise who discovers that Jesus was really a space alien and must race against the clock to stop Nazis from exploiting ancient alien artifacts disguised as religious relics to bring about the end of the world, while romancing a female grad student who happens to look just like Scarlett Johansen.

(P.S. Hollywood Producers: Feel free to use my story idea for your next summer "blockbuster." All I ask is 20 percent on the back end and a co-producer credit.)

The I forgot it was Wednesday Paperback Cover

Two sides of the same coin. The title on the left, was by William S. Burroughs. The one on the right, by some guy.

And the Winners Are

Keith Rawson and Seth Harwood have both won a copy of Reasonable Doubts by Gianrico Carofiglio.